Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Progressive Breakfast: Reaffirm Our National Community By Forgiving Student Debt

MORNING
MESSAGE

Today
more than 43 million Americans collectively owe more than $1.4 trillion in
student debt ... It is preventing young people from forming households, from
buying cars, from having children, from starting businesses, and from realizing
their dreams in a million different ways we can’t imagine. This debt is also
holding our economy and society back. It is robbing us of the creative
contributions these Americans can make, and it is depriving our economy of the
stimulus effect their spending and their behavior could provide. This debt must
be forgiven – and not just some of it, but all of it.

Ryan
Short On Votes

Votes
elusive for ACA repeal. The Hill: “In a closed-door meeting with House
Republicans, Trump warned that failure to pass the legislation might trigger a
backlash for the GOP in the 2018 midterm elections … But Trump’s dire warning
didn’t appear to immediately change many minds … According to The Hill’s Whip
List at press time, 22 House Republicans were firm ‘no’ votes, with six more
leaning no or likely no … 22 defections would kill the legislation …”

Bill
“DOA in the Senate” reports Politico: “As currently constructed,
conservative and moderate opposition would tank the bill in the Senate, where
the GOP can afford to lose only two votes … ‘Maybe the best outcome is for this
to fail in the House so we can move on to tax reform. Which is what we should
have done anyway,’ said one Republican senator.”

Gorsuch
Coasts

Gorsuch
stays on script. The Hill: “Democrats repeatedly sought to get under
Gorsuch’s skin, but President Trump’s nominee rarely appeared ruffled during his
first day of questioning, and even seemed to charm senior Democrats at times …
Gorsuch’s sharpest retorts were prompted by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse(D-R.I.) and
Al Franken (D-Minn.), who showed impatience with his repeated refusals to speak
to his personal views.”

Hearing
continues today. NYT: “The rounds of questions on Wednesday will drop from
30 to 20 minutes, and the tighter sessions will make it even harder to nail down
Judge Gorsuch’s legal positions … [but] a weary judge may be more likely to make
a misstep.”

Trump
Prepares Climate Order

Trump
executive order on climate expected “as soon as Thursday or as late as next
month,” reports NYT: “While the White House is not expected to explicitly
say the United States is withdrawing from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate
change, and people familiar with the White House deliberations say Mr. Trump has
not decided whether to do so, the policy reversals would make it virtually
impossible to meet the emissions reduction goals set by the Obama administration
under the international agreement … Mr. Trump will order Mr. Pruitt to withdraw
and rewrite a set of Obama-era regulations known as the Clean Power Plan … The
draft also lays out options for legally blocking or weakening about a half-dozen
additional Obama-era executive orders and policies on climate change … While Mr.
Trump may announce with great fanfare his intent to roll back the regulations,
the legal steps required to fulfill that announcement are lengthy and the
outcome uncertain.”

Carbon
tax, Paris pact debated in Trump White House. Politico: “When former
Secretary of State James Baker and his allies came to the White House last month
to pitch a carbon tax, they received a warm reception from Gary Cohn, one of the
president’s top economic advisers. Six weeks later, the friendly meeting with
advocates of the highly controversial policy proposal is still reverberating in
the White House, underscoring the increasingly tense relationship between Cohn
and Steve Bannon … One of the most heated debates in the West Wing has proved to
be the Paris climate change agreement. People inside and outside the White House
say it’s unclear where Trump will come down on the agreement, but that it will
be a test of Bannon’s and Cohn’s influence.”

Breakfast
Sides

GOP
governors chafe at Trump budget. NYT: “They have complained to the White
House about reductions they see as harmful or arbitrary, and they plan to
pressure members of Congress from their states to oppose them. Of acute concern
to Republicans are a handful of low-profile programs aimed at job training and
economic revitalization, including regional development agencies like the
Appalachian commission and the Delta Regional Authority, which serves eight
Southern and Midwestern states, seven of them with Republican governors. They
are also protective of grants from the Department of Housing and Urban
Development and a $3.4 billion job-training program funded through the Labor
Department.”

Homeland
Security pressures sanctuary cities. The Hill: “On Monday, the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) released its first report listing jurisdictions that
refuse cooperation with federal immigration authorities … The U.S. Conference of
Mayors (USCM) on Tuesday questioned the constitutionality of ICE detainers and
the truthfulness of the DHS report.”

Congressional
Black Caucus to meet with Trump today. Mother Jones:“White House Press
Secretary Sean Spicer said that the entire 49-person caucus was invited. But a
spokeswoman for the caucus says that just six members, all officers on the CBC’s
leadership team, will meet with the president. Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), the
chair of the caucus, says that the small group size is a strategic move that
differentiates this discussion from some of the larger listening sessions that
have occurred at the White House in recent weeks. ‘This will be a serious
meeting, not a photo opportunity,’ Richmond said in a statement on
Tuesday.”

Progressive
Breakfast is a daily morning email highlighting news stories of interest to
activists. Progressive Breakfast and OurFuture.org are projects of People's
Action. more
»